Sepoy (centre): will have to break a weight-carrying record to win
PICTURE: Getty Images
Dubai-bound Sepoy faces tough test at Caulfield
BY NICHOLASGODFREY12:49PM 23 FEB 2012
Preview: Australia, Saturday 4.50am GMT (live on ATR)
Caulfield: Oakleigh Plate (Group 1 hcap) 5½f, turf, 3yo+
BRILLIANT three-year-old sprinter Sepoy, beaten just once in 11 starts, faces a really testing assignment on Saturday as he returns to action in Melbourne before a crack at the Dubai Golden Shaheen for Godolphin.
Theson of Elusive Quality is being prepared for Dubai by Sheikh Mohammed’s Aussie trainer Peter Snowden, while Darley’s retained rider Kerrin McEvoy will keep the ride.
Last weekend the partnership endured a setback when UAE Derby hope Helmet was flopped at Flemington and now Sepoy will have to break a weight-carrying record from an awkward gate if he is to embellish a record already featuring four Group 1 victories.
Sepoy breaks from gate 11 in a 16-runner field. Perhaps more significantly, he must shoulder 58kg (9st2lb) in the Oakleigh Plate – a handicap in which he carries top-weight against older horses.
He has a kilomore than last year’s Oakleigh Plate winner Eagle Falls and will giving as much as 6kg (13lb) to eight of his rivals.
Sepoy would be the highest-weighted three-year-old to win the Oakleigh Plate, eclipsing the 57kg record set by Fastnet Rock in 2005. Such a big weight was last carried to victory by Dual Choice in 1972 – and no other horse has even made the places under a similar burden.
The Snowden team have been encouraged to let the world’s top-rated three-year-old sprinter take his chance by the colt’s progress in the last fortnight.
“He has improved so much I can’t believe it,” said Snowden. “To my eye the way the horse looks he needs to run. I feel he is going to run very well on Saturday.”
Although he is still favourite, Sepoy has been a market drifter in Australia, where the money has come for the five-year-oldBel Sprinter (Jason Warren/Ben Melham).
Classy Sepoy striving to defy the weight of history
Andrew Eddy
February 24, 2012
Rude talent: Sepoy. Photo: Vince CaligiuriSUPER colt Sepoy could find himself among the top half-dozen highest-ranked horses in the world if he can set a weight-carrying record in the group 1 Oakleigh Plate at Caulfield tomorrow.
Sepoy, a four-time group 1 winner with a record of 10 wins and one narrow defeat, is already recognised as the world’s leading three-year-old sprinter in the 2011 World Thoroughbred Ratings with a mark of 123, but that rating can rise sharply if he successfully carries 58 kilograms against the older horses and beats them convincingly under handicap conditions tomorrow.
Racing Victoria Ltd’s general manager of racing, Greg Carpenter, said if Sepoy was to become the highest-weighted three-year-old to win the Oakleigh Plate, which was first run in 1884, it would be a feat difficult to ignore for the international handicapping panel.
”I think an impressive win with that weight against the older horses would be most likely to affect his rating, but much still depends on how he performs, and if he was to win, how much he wins by,” Carpenter said.
With a rating of 123, Sepoy is only three points shy of former Australian champion So You Think, whose rating has him as the equal-fifth-best thoroughbred in the world.
Sepoy has another chance to improve his rating on March 31 when he races in front of his owner, Sheikh Mohammed, in Dubai in the group 1 Golden Shaheen. He will then be sent to the Godolphin stable’s British headquarters at Newmarket with a Royal Ascot campaign likely in June.
By then his trainer, Peter Snowden, and his son, Paul, will have said goodbye to the colt that they compare with the mighty Lonhro.
The Oakleigh Plate, Sepoy’s last start in Australia, is therefore crucial in the scheme of the valuable colt’s racing and post-racing future.
”The Oakleigh Plate is a superb stepping stone for him,” Paul Snowden said yesterday. ”We’ve always been quite adamant that he needs regular racing to keep him at that level.
”He goes there [Dubai] hopefully in winning form and he’s got that run under his belt, which is always important.
”The horse is 120 per cent. I think he’s more forward than he’s ever been first-up and he probably needs to be leading into Saturday with, obviously, the weight. He’s come back bigger and stronger all over. He’s just a much more mature horse.”
Snowden said Sepoy had thrived since his searching track gallop at Seymour last week.
”I was very surprised how he took to the day. He’s usually quite a bubbly horse, but it never fazed him. That was the whole purpose of going up there – to get that extra 10 per cent or 20 per cent out of him that you couldn’t do on the track here.”
Mike Moroney said yesterday he was pleased with his decision to leave young sprinter African Pulse out of last week’s Lightning Stakes at Flemington won by Black Caviar, despite the fact that he runs into Sepoy tomorrow.
”But at least we get some weight off him and that gives us a chance. I don’t think we would have been much chance last week, that’s for sure,” he said.
Peter Snowden rates Sepoy with Octagonal and Lonhro
- by:Rod Nicholson
- From:Herald Sun
- February 24, 2012 12:00am
Sepoy has a tough task winning the Oakleigh Plate with 58kg.Source: Herald Sun
TRAINER Peter Snowden never thought he would encounter another super galloper like Octagonal or Lonhro, but he already rates three-year-old Sepoy in the same league.
Son Paul said his father rated Sepoy “as one of the best horses we have ever trained.”
Comparing Sepoy with Octagonal and Lonhro, Paul Snowden declared: “That is where his level is, and he is not done for yet.”
Sepoy, who has won 10 of his 11 starts, including four at Group 1, resumes his quest for international stardom in the Group 1 Oakleigh Plate (1100m) at Caulfield before heading to Dubai to contest the first of his international races, the US$2 million Golden Shaheen (1200m) on World Cup Night on March 31.
Young Snowden knows the brilliant colt has a task ahead at Caulfield, carrying 58kg, but believes his class can get him through.
Sepoy, looking to claim an unblemished 10th win in Victoria, has the opportunity to match or surpass the deeds of Octagonal, who won 14 of his 28 races, including 10 Group 1s, as well as Lonhro, whose 26 wins from 35 races included 10 Group 1s.
Snowden also will run Applegate and Rusambo in the Group 1 Blue Diamond Stakes.
“Applegate blew the start last time. She has been the flagship and I would not be dropping off her,” Snowden said.
Danny O’Brien believes his two charges, Cambiaso and Bush Aviator, are over the odds in the Diamond.
“Cambiaso didn’t get a run at them in the Prelude … he has blinkers on and the 1200m suits.
“I’ve always had a high opinion of Bush Aviator. He will go forward and I think he is my pick.”
Mike Moroney has three quality gallopers on show in Group 1 events, with Wall Street in the Futurity Stakes, African Pulse in the Oakleigh Plate and Glass Harmonium in the Peter Young Stakes.
“Wall Street is big and strong and he will improve from this run on the way to Sydney and Brisbane.
“African Pulse is very good. He beat King Mufhasa over the Spring and I think he is Group class. He has courage and a good weight and he has good gate speed so I’m really looking forward to this.”
“Glass harmonium has come back from a wind operation for a soft palate and he’s on his way to the Australia Cup, Sydney and possibly Singapore and Hong Kong. I think he is a winning chance and the way he has worked gives me a lot of confidence.”
